


Spring, eh?

by NebulousMistress



Category: Stargate Atlantis: Legacy Series - Various Authors
Genre: Gen, Spring, antics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 11:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10385649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: It doesn't feel like Spring. We'll make it feel like Spring.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I'm not Canadian. This was caused by my Norwegian grandfather's tales of his life in Minnesota and is somewhat based on a thousand 'Meanwhile in Canada' memes.

Snow fell in lazy spirals, collecting in drifts against walls and towers. The daytime aurorae lent strange colors to the shining white crust that melted and refroze over and over again, turning the older drifts into deceptive ice piles that lurked among the gentle softness of new snowfall.

The sea sparkled, small chunks of ice drifting south from the subtropical interglacial zone. The wind was calm, the sea grey-blue, and the East Pier was abuzz with activity.

Airman Roberts watched the strange display out there in the snow and tapped his radio. “Colonel Sheppard?”

“Yes?” came the reply.

“Sir, we have a... situation here. You need to see this.”

*****

Rodney McKay looked at the small group who'd invaded his lab, scientists and technicians all of them. Sort of. One was from Anthropology and Rodney only considered them scientists when speaking to budget committees. They were saying words that made sense on their own but when combined they just sounded like madness.

“You know you want to,” Chuck said.

“It'll be fun, don'cha know,” Sven said.

“Think of the ridiculousness,” Lee said.

“I **am** thinking of the ridiculousness,” Rodney said. “You're telling me you're trying to get every Canadian, Norwegian, and Russian on Atlantis out in the snow. For some strange spring ritual.”

“Precisely,” Yuri said. “You did your time in Siberia, you know this is not cold.”

“Point,” Rodney conceded. He had yet to experience cold as bad as Siberia. The incident with the malfunctioning fusion reactor wasn't even as cold as Siberia. “Still, no.”

“C'mon,” Chuck said, face falling to one of scorn. “He spent too many years in the desert. He might as well be an American now.”

Rodney felt insulted as the group began filing out of his lab. “Wait a minute,” he snapped. “How dare you?”

“Then prove it,” Chuck goaded. The scorn evaporated into challenge. “Prove you're still Canadian.”

“This world's spring equinox is in three days,” Dominika said. “You will be there, no?”

Rodney realized what they'd done. He slumped in annoyed defeat. “No one tells Sheppard,” he said.

“Of course not,” Rowan said. “No one tells the military. They wouldn't understand, they'd try to stop us to 'keep us safe' or some such American nonsense.”

Rodney snorted. “Fine,” he allowed. “What did you have in mind?”

*****

The icy world's yellow-orange star hung cold in the sky, its wan light adding a fiery hue to the drifts of snow. Its light did nothing to warm Colonel Sheppard as he stepped out into the snow and the cold to meet Airman Roberts on the East Pier. All he had gotten from Roberts was that there was 'something strange' out here and he 'needed to see this'.

Sheppard pulled his coat close around him and burrowed his hands under his own scarf. “What is it, Roberts?” he asked, shivering.

“Cold, sir?” Roberts asked. Roberts didn't look any less prepared, covered from head to toe in cold weather gear and marine-knitted hat.

Sheppard glared.

“Right.” Roberts led Sheppard out onto the Pier where the light breeze cut through the densest of wool knit and the spray of the sea felt like tiny knives of ice stabbing any exposed skin. Yet there they were.

Sheppard stared before he rubbed his eyes. This had to be a hallucination.

It was still there when he looked again.

Someone, somewhere, had put together a fire pit and there were skewers of meat and vegetables roasting. A volleyball net was set up nearby and two teams were in the middle of play. Sheppard winced as someone dove for the ball and ended up in the snow. He stared in shock as that person stood up, shook off the snow, then got back into the game. They... were wearing swimwear. Shorts, bikinis, and no shoes.

Sheppard looked around. Here were familiar, sane, normal people standing around or laying on lounge chairs, none of them wearing proper clothes. They were all dressed for summer!

“What the fuck?!” Sheppard demanded aloud.

Conversation quieted down and somewhere, somehow, music was turned off. Sheppard looked around in disturbed shock. These were people, human beings, had they all gone mad? Was there something in the snow that did this?

“You're in my light.”

Sheppard went still as he heard a familiar voice, a trusted voice, a voice he'd always counted on as sane and rational and... He turned around to find Rodney in a garish pair of swim trunks and sunglasses and nothing else, laying on a lounge chair with a tanning mirror.

“What is **wrong** with you people?!” Sheppard demanded.

Sheppard was slapped on the back by someone large and hairy. He tried to catch his breath in the painfully cold air. “Is spring,” Yuri said before he took a swig from a glass bottle. Sheppard wondered just how alcoholic that drink had to be to remain liquid out here.

“It's a venerable Canadian tradition,” Rodney lied with a straight face. “We let you have your American fêtes.” Given the hilarious horror written all over Sheppard's face perhaps it should become a tradition.

Sheppard backed away slowly.

Roberts grinned as he watched, accepting a pull from Sven's bottle of bootleg vodka. It burned with all the fire he needed to stay warm.

Sheppard backed away right back into the relative safety of Atlantis's spires before radioing for help. “Woolsey, Carson, we have a problem.” He paused then began yelling. “What do you mean you knew?! How is this normal? 'They're used to cold like this' is not an excuse!”

Roberts laughed as he toasted the revelers with his vodka. A dozen bottles raised in response as the music started up again.


End file.
